Riders of Rohan is less than two weeks away! While some might think that nothing is left to do but to wait for the fight on the plains, we believe that on the contrary, there is much that needs to be done before going to battle! Here are our ideas on how you can get prepared for the release of the upcoming expansion in LOTRO:
The Golden Rule: Read the patch notes.
Know what will disappear or be added! This might be your last chance to get that special piece of equipment you’d like to have as a cosmetic! You’ll also be better prepared to know what mats will become important or if there’s a special profession you might want to level right away.
Before the raise of level cap.
- Right before launch day, do as many dailies as you can, but don’t turn them in! When the level cap increases, you’ll have a nice bunch of experience from turning in these quests. Seek the dailies in Great River first as it is the current end game zone but don’t forget other dailies from other zones as well!
- Decide which characters you will want to level and equip them coherently for leveling: That usually translates to more burst DPS! For example, a very well geared healing minstrel might want to get a decent war-speech set to make leveling easier. Don’t forget there will be open tapping to allow you to work with your fellow players!
- Get your virtues leveled up. Currently set to 14, the new level cap is expected to also raise the virtue cap to 16.
Crafting
- Complete the westfold tier of your crafting professions. Be ready to start working on the new crafting tier as soon as it arrives instead of running after old mats!
- Crafting guild crests for crafting guild reputation. You will need 60,000 guild reputation for the new tier of crafting in Rohan.
Clean that vault
- Convert most goods into money. Sell everything you can on the AH, especially rare end-game materials that will become obsolete. Try to sell those as soon as possible to minimize their loss of value.
- Keep normal westfold crafting material: If you can, sell those some time after the expansion comes out. People will want to buy their way out of westfold master instead of slowly grinding materials like you did!
Stockpile
- Turbine Points. You’ll be able to acquire those nice new cosmetic and maybe even buy the new expansion. Playing your favorite game and earn points that will save you real money? Yes please! Here’s a great list of deeds to get you started.
- Marks/Medallions/Seals. You never know what goodies you’ll be able to buy! Be the first to get your hands on that special cosmetic item, that decent leveling gear or to upgrade your soldier’s skills to the new level cap.
Epic Quests
Complete that epic quest line you’ve been pulling off for so long! A great way to discover a region and its lore is to be up to date with the epic quest line and get straight into the action. All LOTRO players will agree, you’ll get more of your gaming experience if you follow the epic quests!
Exclusive Rohan Content
You one of the legendary purchasers for Riders of Rohan? You could be working on the daily quests at Hengstacer’s Farm to complete the Discovering the Descendant daily quests.
The end result of these quests is a new skill “Favor of the Mearas”. It has a one day long cooldown but it is an exclusive skill only the legendary purchasers get so you might as well get it, right?
See Ketani’s post about this quest chain with some hints on how to get things done.
How about you? What will you do to be prepared for Rohan?
October 1, 2012 at 9:02 am
Working virtue caps on my Warden now (not fun) and epics (more fun). Realizing you want to trade for Zeal (which was at 2) ugh. 3 days later and I’m up to 11….
October 1, 2012 at 10:29 am
It appears that the one-day cool down on the Favor skill is just a place holder. During the first found of beta, the cool down was an hour and in Round 5 it was 15 minutes. The skill does come in handy when I get myself into a warband fight that I would have preferred to avoid.
October 1, 2012 at 10:42 am
Oh interesting. I actually haven’t earned my skill yet. I need to get on that.
October 1, 2012 at 11:35 am
My advice would be login daily if possible for your characters near level-cap and check for any of the quests you haven’t done yet. Since you only need to do each of the quests in its repeatable form ONCE to earn the skill =)
October 1, 2012 at 10:33 am
well, besides the regular Beta work load ..
My husband & I are getting all our misc. servers ready.
Lvl 75′s in Stangard ready to cross into Rohan!
We LOVE a real challenge – if it aint red, why bother (-doh)
So, even though we are familar with the content (to a point) The below is gunna be a rough & fun filled ride.
You can currently get the initial quests out of Rohan at lvl 71 .. THUS:
Wardens to lvl 71 (they can solo at that lvl, but it takes awhile – so be patient)
All our fellowship teams (within reason) to lvl 71.
We dont have time for anything else.
The only new cosmetics for us are the ones from the festivals.
So, we’ll see you out there!!!!
AND, if you havent pre-ordered yet – you may wish to.
The content and the War Steed are worth the money (IMHO).
Wyllo & Gruffi
Middle Earth Pest Control
(6 servers & growing)
October 1, 2012 at 11:42 am
No gear is going away.
If it’s no longer going to be a quest/raid reward, it will soon be available in the LOTRO store.
October 1, 2012 at 12:27 pm
Finishing up on my 6th lvl 75 toon (5levels left.) have him and one other toon to finish up on virtues. Done with crafting guild rep items.
Saved up enough skirmish marks to level up all my soldiers to 85. Only going to keep them leveled with me. Cost too much to over level them. (Wonder if there’s going to be many new skirmishes coming out? Will soldiers be forgotten over the steeds?)
-Flosiin of Winfola
October 1, 2012 at 3:44 pm
This is so depressing for someone who has no time in her schedule for being a awesome person, like you all! You’d better keep us updates!
October 1, 2012 at 3:46 pm
I’m right there with you. I haven’t done 99% of what is on this list. I was making my list and thought I might as well share it and find out what I missed
October 1, 2012 at 4:01 pm
Well at least, from what I remember, yer at the level cap! I’ve been playing on this new server since the beginning of June (taking a break for the whole month of July for camp) and I am only level 55. Though I do have a lvl 75 on Crickhollow, I can’t stand the people there.
October 1, 2012 at 5:07 pm
Good job with ye ‘ol expansion prep list, as usual. Just to add another prep list to the pile (if I may be so bold), consider checking out LOTRO forum user DEATHKNYGHT’s “Preparing for Riders of Rohan End-Game” list here (though be warned that it may contain a couple of spoilers for things like the possible expanison’s epic rewards) – http://forums.lotro.com/showthread.php?477101-Preparing-for-Riders-of-Rohan-End-Game
One little odd thing I may add to the prepping, for hunters. If you have reached Caras Galadhon in Lothlorien, it may be good to accrue at least 20 Lothlorien Branches. This way, you should be ready to barter for the Caras Galadhon guide skill from the Hunter trainer in CG (up on the flet, near the Auction House). Note that the final cost of the port could be more or less branches come live server time.
October 1, 2012 at 5:38 pm
Good to know! Thanks.
It’s getting rather involved to keep a character up to date! Wonder if there’s any cross over with our soldier and war steed? Skirmish coming out where our skirmish soldier is mounted too?
October 1, 2012 at 7:53 pm
Mounted skirmishes would be awesome!
October 1, 2012 at 8:13 pm
I am trying to get my rep for LL, Theodred and Stangard up. Apart from that I am in no rush and I have been on a casual stroll to Mordor since I first played. Looking forward to the Ettenmoor changes but not likely to Freepside there for some time.
October 1, 2012 at 8:32 pm
There’s no need to make dailies to get more experience at start – there’s no new group end game content, so you can enjoy the Rohan in slow pace.
October 1, 2012 at 8:47 pm
I’m playing the game and enjoying myself. The rest is more than I’m interested in for something that is supposed to be entertainment. If I’m not ‘ready’ for Rohan, I guess I’ll just be behind–I’m honestly not too worried.
October 2, 2012 at 12:16 am
The one thing I should have been doing all along but am too lazy to bother with is making craft guild rep items ahead of time to turn in. I’ll make them eventually with the new Rohan guild materials, whatever they are, but in the meantime I’ll be behind on my crafting…. again….
October 2, 2012 at 9:00 am
By the way, one important thing was missed in this guide – craft as much relics as you can – at RoК launch deconstruct them in shards. For new legendary weapons and mount bridles you’ll neeв 5/10k per relic.
October 2, 2012 at 11:20 am
Crafting guild crests are a handy way of getting the crafting xp. So my plan is to just level off those for the most part, my 75′s a cook so the less farming I have to suffer through the better.
At the same time lower level crafters have been working through westfold tiers making them instead of vendor trash.
There’s meant to be an access into caras for those without the rep however it’s worth getting inside and finding your way around so you can do that phase a bit more easily.
Cleaning the vault? easier to buy a character slot and use them for storage. Most of my stuff in there isn’t stuff that sells on the AH at all.
October 2, 2012 at 4:37 pm
I’m not sure I’d want to store up on XP. Mainly because I like to be a completionist in a new zone. Sitting on a pile of XP at launch just means I’ll outlevel content that much faster. This new batch of content has to last us 6 months, so I’m all for taking it slow and easy through the levelling process (my personal favorite part of an MMO) rather than figuring out the best way to get to 85.
The main thing I’m doing to prepare for RoR is to not play LOTRO. The end game grind was starting to get to me after getting 3 chars to level cap, and 2 chars to kindred with Heroes of the Limlight gorge. I’m backing off on grinding anything at all until RoR comes out and it feels like fun again!
–Harper
October 4, 2012 at 1:15 pm
I think the most important thing I’ll do before Rohan is hit 80 in GW2. That way my attention can be totally focused on the Riddermark!